Case head separation? What the heck?

[WardenWolf]

I have a Saiga .223 rifle. I was shooting Black Hills remanufactured ammunition. Next to the last round in the box, and last round in the mag, I had a very odd case head separation.

It was break time, so I went to lock the action open. When I did so, I noticed something in the gun. To my horror, I found it was the back 1/4" of the case. I could see the rest of the case still in the chamber, and the case head had clear damage from the extractor. Stranger still, when the muzzle was tipped upwards, the front of the shell dropped cleanly out of the gun under gravity. There are no signs of bulging or blowout around the split, and the only evidence in the chamber is a very thin ring of brass. The remaining 1 round in the box was fired without incident.

After further examination, the shell suffered a clean break, simply pulling apart for no obvious reason. It was apparent that the extraction was unusually violent by the damage to the rim. It seems as if the rear of the case somehow bulged and became stuck in the chamber, but this does not explain why it separated from the unbulged section up front. There is brass dust residue all over the bolt face, but the extractor is fine.

 

[rcmodel]

The reloaded case had stretched to the breaking point in the weapon it was first fired in due to excess headspace. After reloading it and firing it again it let go.

Your Saiga may be a little loose in the headspace department too, further aggravating the case stretch issue.

When a case breaks, it always breaks where yours did, foreward of the tapered case wall web near the head.

It is not especially dangerous, just aggravating.
The case head provides adequate chamber seal to prevent anything really bad from happening.

It happens fairly often enough you hear about it with BH reloads.

rc

 

[WardenWolf]

The Saiga's designed to 5.56 tolerances. Could have allowed a little more swelling. Either way, I will be contacting Black Hills.

 

[R.W.Dale]

Russian ammo for Russian guns.

DUH!

some of you will get the satire in this post

 

[briansmithwins]

1) Don't shoot reloads. If the Virgin Mary offered me a box of her reloads, I'd pass.

2) Check headspace. Case head separation is a classic sign of excess headspace. BSW

 

[WardenWolf]

Shot over 150 rounds through the gun since I bought it. First problem. Pretty sure it was a fluke bad round that just overexpanded. Wasn't able to recover any other brass, though. I honestly can't tell you where it was flinging it, but it was missing 2 ejector screens I'd set up for the pleasure of those next to me (and to let me recover the expensive 7.62x54R brass from my PSL). Since an AK never ejects forwards, best guess is it was entirely clearing the firing line and safe zone behind it and going off into the grass behind the barrier, easily going 15-20 feet (it's the same ejector used in the 7.62 rifles, launching tiny .223 cartridges). No more remanufactured ammo, though. I don't care if it's more, I'm buying factory new.

 

[buttrap]

Thats reloaded ammo for you right there. One case from a gun with max head space and you get a case seperation.